Just Casual
by autumnsbliss
Summary: They were supposed to just be having some fun on the side. He wasn't supposed to be cancelling dates to be with her instead. And he definitely wasn't supposed to be telling her he loved her.


_A/N: So I actually wrote this for Tumblr a while ago and realized I never posted it here despite it being one of my favorites. So now that it's been edited a bit, here it is !_

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Things between her and Carisi were just casual. Or at least that was what Rollins needed to tell herself.

It was casual when she'd pull him closer to her on those increasingly frequent nights when he would sleep next to her. It was casual when he would turn off her alarm for her in the middle of the night to allow her to get the extra sleep she so desperately needed, and would wake up early to get Jesse ready for school himself. It was casual when she would catch herself watching him from across the squad room during particularly uneventful shifts...allowing her mind to wander back to how good he had made her feel just a few hours prior, only to forcefully push the thoughts away when she could feel a subconscious blush begin to creep up her neck.

That was why she knew she had to have misinterpreted what she was sure he was only a fraction of a second away from saying the night before.

She knew as well as the next person that people's subconscious thoughts weren't always functioning at the highest level during sex. And – in his defense – he hadn't really gotten the opportunity to complete the thought anyway. She hadn't allowed him to get past "Amanda…I" before she silenced him with a heated kiss.

But she wasn't naive. She knew what logically came next.

Their arrangement was supposed to have been simple: sometimes they'd sleep together when the mood was right. It was supposed to have been nothing more than an added benefit to the friendship that had blossomed between them over the past few years. An outlet for when either of them felt particularly lonely. But perhaps - she thought - their original intentions had gotten lost somewhere along the way.

Carisi was supposed to have gone on a date that night with someone he'd met in law school, and even when he attempted to give her a half-hearted excuse as to why he cancelled last minute, she found that he really hadn't given much of an explanation at all. If it was true that he 'wasn't feeling up to it', she wasn't sure how he ended up at her apartment and not his own.

All of that coupled with what she was sure he had almost said – what he would have said had she not cut him off – was what made her realize that this had all gone too far. They were supposed to just be having some fun on the side. He wasn't supposed to be cancelling dates to be with her instead.

And he definitely wasn't supposed to be telling her he loved her.

She knew that he was already awake by the time she woke up the next morning when she could hear the sink running from the next room. Maybe the fact that a space on the sink counter had been steadily compiling more of his things – a toothbrush, a stick of deodorant, a razor, a bottle of cologne – should have been her first hint that this had been turning into something more than intended. Or the fact that, even when she found herself questioning what made her think any of this was a good idea to begin with, she still found comfort in sleeping in one of his shirts and letting the familiar scent of him that lingered on the fabric wrap around her.

"Hey…Carisi? Can we talk?"

The sound of running water cut off, and Rollins pinched the bridge of her nose to gather her thoughts before he could open the bathroom door to look at her and respond.

"Yeah?"

He looked increasingly more curious the longer she let the silent pause linger between them. With a sigh, she squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, almost in frustration.

"Why'd you really cancel your date last night?"

"C'mon, Amanda," he sighed.

"I'm serious, Sonny. You and I both know it's not exactly in your nature to blow off a real date for casual sex. Why the sudden change of heart?"

"You know why."

The response was almost too vague for her to assess, but she had a feeling that her 'knowing why' wasn't exactly related to the lame excuse he had given her before they'd fallen into bed together.

"I really don't think I do."

"Amanda...you know I have feelings for you. This isn't just casual sex. Not for me."

A heavy silence hung over them, and Rollins subconsciously twisted the sleeve of her shirt – his shirt – almost anxiously up into the palm of her hand.

"You…know that's not how this was supposed to work," she reminded him. "The first time this happened we said-"

"I know," he assured her before she could complete the thought. "But maybe we were kinda naive to think things wouldn't change."

As much as she didn't want to understand what he was saying, or where he was coming from, she did. It was why she didn't care that more and more of the empty counter-space in her bathroom was now occupied by his things…and why she knew somewhere in her subconscious that she would have been content to spend every night engulfed in the scent of his dress shirts.

He was right. Things had changed. Even if she had been choosing not to notice.

She hadn't realized how tense the silence between them had grown until he shook his head with a frustrated sigh and gathered his keys from where he'd set them on top of her dresser the night before.

"Look...I'm sorry." His tone was sincere, if not somewhat flustered, as he pocketed his wallet from its usual spot on her nightstand. "I shouldn't of..."

"Carisi, wait," her hand gently grasped his wrist before he could get too far, and despite the nervous knot in her stomach, she looked up at him with the same sincerity that his tone held only seconds prior. "Maybe we were."

At the sound of her confirmation, he couldn't help but smile a smile that, despite being small...barely there... brightened the room. And when he finally approached her to sit down on the bed next to her, she wrapped her arms around him and pressed a fleeting kiss against his lips before looking up into his eyes.

"Sonny…I-"

She wasn't entirely sure where she was going with the statement, and luckily, she didn't have to figure it. Because this time, he was the one to silence her with the same intensity of the heated kiss that she had silenced him with the night prior, pulling her in close to him in an embrace that, admittedly, didn't feel the same as it used to.

Because things had changed…and suddenly she was more than okay with that.


End file.
